


Hush

by swimthewholeriogrande



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Description, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Nightmares, Recovery, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-05 14:59:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17327159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Jake talks and talks and talks and doesn't know when to stop - until someone makes him.





	Hush

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for b99 before but I do love angst, so hope you enjoy!

Jake woke up without air. His throat closed for a moment, chest constricting, until finally his hazy mind caught on and sucked in oxygen through the filthy gag in his mouth. It took a moment for that to register, and then when it did he froze.

 _Okay,_ he thought firmly _, okay, so, not panicking. Alright. Okay. Cool._

He was tied down, he knew that much, flat on his back with a blindfold that scratched and irritated his eyes. He tested the restraints - he had the muscle mass of noodles, so it wasn't like he could've done much - and found they were so tight he had to bite his lip when they cut into his skin.

But he was a cop, Jake remembered. He was trained for stuff like this! This was his John McClane moment! He was captured by the thieves, or whoever they were (what was the Brooklyn version of evil Germans?) and it was up to him alone to get himself out.

First things first: how he got there. Jake screwed his eyes shut beneath the cloth and forced his brain - which was rabbiting off in a million directions - to think back. The last thing he remembered was getting up in the morning and heading to work, Amy having gone earlier to meet with her beat cops, and then there was nothing. He'd had concussions and passed out before, heaps of times, but this big blank space in his memory didn't feel like that.

Next step: make contact. "Hey!" he called out, muffled and garbled and sounding kind of more like his Grover impression than John McClane, "this would be a lot more interesting if there was anyone here to talk to!" He could hear Amy's exasperated voice in his mind telling him _don't aggravate_ and Holt grumbling _professionalism, Peralta_ \- but he was alone, and it was his way or no way, Jake thought firmly.

There was no answer for a while, and then he heard footsteps clipping to his right. Jake turned his head and tried to grin through the gag; no need to be impolite, right?

"Service could be better," he mumbled brightly. "I don't think -"

Jake had no idea what he had been going to say next; the blow to the side of his head knocked the words clean out of him, replacing them with a surprised grunt of pain and shock. The blindfold and gag were ripped off a second later and he blinked quickly against the light in his face, rotating his jaw to get rid of the stiffness. The feeling of unease in his stomach that had taken root the second he woke up coiled tight.

When his eyes refocused the person was still there, looming, face covered with a black mask - _nice_ , Jake thought absentmindedly, _very classic kidnapper_. He tested the cuffs pinning him down again, almost reflexively, and reminded himself to stay calm, easy-breezy. "What can I help you get?" he asked, a lot less blithe now. "What do you want?"

The man snorted and moved out of his field of vision. Jake tried to track his movement until his neck ached and he lay back again. Not being able to see his kidnapper made him feel ten times more vulnerable. "I can help you," he maintained, starting to fidget imperceptibly, "whatever you need, but you have to talk to me."

"Jesus!" There was a clatter, angry footsteps, and a slap that made Jake wince. "Do you ever shut up?" He couldn't place the rough voice, the ambiguous accent, but it made him afraid in a way he hated - reminded him of his dad telling him to shut up when he couldn't stop rambling as a kid.

But he wasn't a kid anymore, he was an NYPD detective. Jake swallowed and tried to look the man in the eye through his mask. "You should know that I'm a police officer." he said steadily, more steady than he felt. "It's in your best interests to cooperate and we can both get out of this safely -"

This time the hit knocked a tooth loose, and Jake howled, the raw hole in his mouth on fire, head jerking.

"I told you to shut up!"

-

Jake was late. Amy wasn't really surprised, but when Gina texted her from the bullpen at twenty to ten that he still wasn't there and it was almost a record at that point, she started to get a bit antsy. It was entirely possible that he'd fallen back asleep - she'd left him soft and sleepy and lovely in their bed that morning - but she'd called twice and his phone went to voicemail.

She was being stupid; his phone was probably dead. Amy tried to focus on her work, staring at her computer and not seeing much, until she got a call up to the bullpen around noon. The second the elevator doors opened and she stepped out, she felt the shift - something was wrong.

Jake's desk was messy and untouched from the day before. Holt was standing by it, face stern as per usual, but when he met her gaze his eyes were so sorry that she couldn't look at anyone in the room but him.

He was holding something, some kind of letter, and Amy wasn't breathing. "Something has happened to Detective Peralta." he said, heavily, painfully, and that, she was sure, was the moment she was going to die.

-

Okay, so, maybe Jake hadn't had the exact training for this exact scenario, since this was a little less John McClane and a little more Saw, but he was a detective, and he was trained for something at least, and he was strong, he knew that, and it was going to be _fine_ , because it was always fine eventually -

"Stop." Fingers bit into the exposed muscle of his thigh and Jake gagged, spasming, his eyes popping. "You're so loud, Peralta. Always so loud. Did no one ever teach you to be quiet?"

"It never stuck," Jake panted, because he really couldn't control his big mouth, and the other man shook his head. The knife in his hand flashed, bright and surreal, and Jake thought about Amy, about his mom, about Rosa's face when she came out and Charles' hugs and Terry's advice and -

It didn't stop. He never stopped. Jake felt his voice climb and climb, teetering on hysterical, as the lighter grazed his palms and the knife ran down his chest, until it broke in his throat. Someone had to have figured out he was missing. Amy, surely. Someone. Anyone.

When the phone camera flashed, too close for comfort, Jake had the presence of mind (or lack thereof) to protest. "Don't," he managed, hoarse and strained, "what are you -"

He almost hear the crack of his ribs before he felt it, and suddenly there was blood in his mouth. Jake had long given up testing the restraints - he knew his ankles and wrists must be raw - but he pulled against them instinctively, letting out a very manly yowl.

"Your people are slow, huh?" The man was out of his sight again, and Jake closed his eyes and swallowed thickly, trying to breathe. "This should move it along."

The camera flashed again; Jake licked the blood off his lips and tried to smile for it.

-

Turned out, Jake wasn't asleep, snoring blissfully through his alarm. He wasn't having car trouble, or chasing a dog, or helping an old lady cross the street or any of the million scenarios Amy had created. He was being held somewhere, somewhere far from her, and in the full and bustling precinct Amy had never felt more alone.

She could deal with a hostage situation almost as well as Jake could - ironically, he was the best negotiator. Holt was mercifully willing to let her ditch her beat cops and stay in the bullpen, where her and the other detectives abandoned any other open cases to the 'outer circle' and crowded into Holt's office. It wasn't like he could have stopped her.

The letter, which had been sent for handwriting analysis against all the major criminals Jake had put away, was simple; he was being held for ransom for the amount of three million dollars - Amy knew that if Jake had been there, he would have been pretty smug - to be transferred into an offshore account. It was cut and dry, or it would have been, if it wasn't her husband they were talking about. Her wonderful, caring, too-smart-for-his-own-good husband.

It was coming up on four p.m when suddenly Charles yelped, shooting out of his seat. "Precinct email," he gasped, his face paler than Amy had ever seen, "there's pictures."

Amy lunged at the computer but Terry was already opening the tab - three pictures attached to a blank email, the return address a scramble of letters than Rosa wrote down to have traced without a word. Amy's oxygen left her in a wheezing rush; she felt Gina steady her.

"C'mon, girl." the other woman murmured in her ear, uncharacteristically gentle. "S'gonna be okay."

Jake's squinted eyes, bruised beyond belief, stared at them accusingly from the laptop. His mouth was split and slack; Amy could see missing teeth and red stains on others. The first two pictures were close to his bloodied face, and the third was his full body - battered, burned and mangled, almost groteseque. She felt her stomach lurch, sickened.

"Do something." she heard herself snarl, and Rose said, almost in awe, "Locking in an IP address." and Holt's hand came heavy on her shoulder, comforting and grounding.

"We'll bring him home, Sargent. I promise."

-

Jake's voice had officially abandoned him; the most noise he could produce now was rasping keens, whimpers, groans. He didn't know what he would say even if he could speak. He didn't know anything. There wasn't anything but the pain, permeating everywhere, wiping away anything that could have come before or after. Nothing but the bright light and the masked man and his own stupid sounds, too loud, _too loud_ -

"You're getting better." Jake felt fingers pet roughly through his hair, mock comfort, and groaned weakly. "Much quieter. I knew I could teach you."

Suddenly the fingers tightened, almost ripping his hair out, and Jake choked on the sensation. The man tutted like a disapproving parent.

"Not fully there yet."

 _He's gonna kill me_ , Jake thought, coming to the realisation with a nauseating twist of his gut. _He's gonna kill me and I won't ever be found. And no one will know. And no one will care._

The hand settled on his wrist. "Ssh," came the whisper, and snap! and Jake let out a gurgling scream with the last of his energy, _I don't want to die, I don't want to die -!_

"NYPD, hands up!"

Suddenly the hands were off him, the light was swung away, and he blinked at the ceiling, at a crack shaped like a puppy. Someone came into his vision like an angel, wiped the tears off his face, and Jake felt his whole body sag with relief.

"Thanks," he breathed, and then he slept.

-

The amount of damage done to Jake Peralta within only 24 was, in its own terrible way, impressive. The doctors said his wounds were more consistent with people held for weeks, with the exception of all of Jake's being fresh and newly aching.

They'd shipped him off to intensive care before Amy could say a word, after a long and horrible ambulance ride, and when she finally got to see him he looked a little better. Someone had washed his face, cleaning the blood and sweat and probably drool that had covered it, and he was sleeping. Peaceful. Butterfly staples under one of his eyes.

Amy Santiago sat at her husband's bedside, held the hand that wasn't encased in plaster, and cried.

When she was finished - because she was a Santiago, dammit, and she was just as strong as anyone - she remembered that the rest of the 99 were in the waiting room. They were all coming up on 2a.m now, and surely would have been kicked out if it wasn't for Gina's passionate speech on special circumstances for 'these dumbasses that risk their lives for you all damn day'. She knew she should go and thank them for staying, but she couldn't leave Jake - not after this had happened after she left him yesterday morning.

Seeing him so quiet and still was unnerving; she would have checked he was still breathing if it wasn't for the steady beep of the monitors. The doctors had said this was normal, that his body had all but forced him into unconsciousness - like a computer shutting down. Amy ran her thumb in circles over his wrist, more to comfort herself than him.

"Wake up," she murmured, "c'mon, Pineapples. Time to get up."

He opened his eyes.

-

Jake woke up without air.

He panicked for an instant, inhaling sharply and finding nothing, before he opened his eyes and saw an all-too-familiar hospital room. His body felt about five hundred pounds too heavy to move, and his throat was scratchy and bone-dry, so he just rolled his eyes to the right and saw -

Amy - after he thought he'd never see her again. He jerked towards her, ignoring the pain, and grabbed at her hand with his own knobbly bandaged one. "Ames," Jake rasped, feeling tears hot on his face. _I'm sorry. I love you._ He couldn't speak, his throat and burning

Amy held on tight and seemed to understand. "Thank God." She was crying too now. "Don't move too much."

Jake tried to sit up immediately and winced, feeling a bone-deep ache just about everywhere. His right hand was huge and clumsy in the cast; he felt a hundred cuts or burns or God knows what pull at the movement and had to flop back down, huffing.

"I told you," Amy scolded, fussing with the sheet. "You need to rest."

Jake had never felt less like resting. He didn't want to sleep and wake up strapped down again, his nerve endings raw and exposed, that mask, shut up, shut up -

"Jake?"

 _Peralta. When are you going to learn to be quiet?_ Jake bit his lip until he could taste blood, screwing his eyes shut. Amy's voice was so far away. He couldn't feel her hand or hear her pressing the button to call the nurse - he wanted his mom. He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else but back there again.

"Amy?" he choked out, terrified of not getting an answer, but suddenly she was back, brushing his hair off his face stroking any inch of unbroken skin she could find.

"I'm here. I'm here."

-

Recovery was slow, and driving Amy's Energiser-bunny of a hyperactive husband crazy. She couldn't count the number of times she'd had to intervene and stop him from rushing to take off bandages or splints.

She _could_ the number of times she'd woken up to his nightmares, because she didn't think she could ever forget them. He'd be in tears, jaws clamped shut, desperate to be quiet, shaking so hard Amy was sometimes scared he'd tremble right apart. That was Jake in the nighttime - he rarely had the same problems by day - just when he dreamed of being back with that maniac.

They'd caught the guy after Rosa managed to trace the email through all the accounts it had been bounced through. It was some perp Jake had put away years ago, someone they hadn't even been considering because he hadn't been a high-roller compared to the others Jake had caught - one count of armed robbery. In the security camera tape they recovered of the abduction, even Jake had looked comically surprised before he got knocked out.

It wasn't easy to get Jake to open up to her - he kept brushing her off with jokes like he did with most everything. It took some real Santiago grit for her to pull what had actually gone down out of him, and even then he tried to play it off. 

"Just a nutjob," Jake laughed when asked, his wringing hands giving him away. "Guess I was just irresistable, right, Ames?"

It got to the point where they were almost fighting over his unwillingness to talk to her, and then Holt stepped in - possibly the greatest man in the world in her humble opinion - and slapped Jake with a minimum of three months mandatory department therapy. It did something that she couldn't do; it gave him an outlet that wouldn't get upset when he got upset.

And at home, she loved him. And that was enough.

-

Jake was back at the 99 almost four months to the day since the Incident, as he so lovingly called it. He had some pretty funky scars - John McClane who? - and some pretty unfunky new habits - it was normal to start sweating when you saw a lighter, right? - but he was back, finally.

Charles had organised a big banner and a bunch of flowers ("Begonias for my BROgonia, Jake!"), because of course he had, and even Rosa gave him a sort-of-friendly nod. Holt told him to get back to his job when he kept fooling around with the banner, but Jake almost detected a _hint_ of amusement. Maybe. Who could say, to be honest.

Jake sat at his desk, wrote a reminder that he had therapy that day on a crumpled old Post-It, and turned on his computer. A homicide came up in his email - beheading, _nice_ \- and he felt a grin start to form on his face.

Time to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please comment and let me know what you thought!


End file.
